Waterford police asking voters for more funding WITH VIDEO

Waterford Township Supervisor Carl Solden, left, and Police Chief Dan McCaw explain the Special Assessment that the township is asking voters to pass on November 6. The 1.95-mill special assessment would be used for additonal police and township services. The Oakland Press/TIM THOMPSON

Citing budget cuts that have led to a department that's half the size it was a decade ago, the Waterford Police Department is asking voters to approve a 1.95 mill special assessment district on the Nov. 6 ballot.

The township of more than 71,000 had 106 sworn officers in 2001 and has 48 today, said Police Chief Dan McCaw.

"The (Department of Justice) says we should have 122 officers," the chief said. "It burns me, honestly, as a police officer ... it burns me to know we've got people going and robbing our people, assaulting our people ... it burns me, and it should burn you if you live in Waterford Township."

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The special assessment district would cost $95.26 per year for a home with a taxable value of $48,853, and generate about $3.6 million in the first year of collection. If the assessment is approved, the department would recall laid-off officers and hire 18 to 20 additional ones.

The township is already levying 10 mills, the maximum number it's allowed, said Supervisor Carl Solden. There would be annual public hearing for the special assessment district if it's approved, he said.

"Subject to that, I think personally this is a better form of taxation, because it allows us to back that (the special assessment district) off when the economy picks up and the assessments and values go up," Solden said.

McCaw said that in addition to the annual hearing, the assessment can be placed on the ballot every election cycle, and residents can petition for it to be put up for reconsideration in the future.

Conversely, "Once you have a millage, you're stuck. The voters have no input," the police chief said.

Township Trustee Anthony Bartolotta said he doesn't buy the argument that the assessment would be modified by the township board in the future. The special assessment district, Bartolotta said, "is a forever tax. There's no sunset to it.

"I can't believe a government entity's going to give back tax dollars," Bartolotta said. "They always find a way to spend it."

Scott Hudson, who served on the Waterford school board for six years and sits on the Pontiac Planning Commission, said the Waterford Police Department is top-heavy.

"A forever tax with no sunset, that's pitiful," he said. "That's bad government, that's what it is." Hudson said he's had signs made opposing the special assessment district.

Solden said the township's tax base has shrunk by about 37 percent since 2008.

In 2010, with the township and police department facing a deficit, 11 police officers were laid off, 12 detention officers were laid off and 16 retired, McCaw said. Since then, officers who have retired or left the department have not been replaced.

"For 911 calls, the response (times) have gone up a couple minutes," McCaw said. "It doesn't seem like a lot, but it is when you're calling 911 and you need the police right there."

The police chief said, "Just recently, the other day, we had a person with a knife and we had five cars working. We had put one in each district."

Three cars went to the knife fight, McCaw said, and then there was a serious car accident.

"Those two runs were in the same district," he said. "In the rest of the township, we had no other service. I don't say this to scare people, but they need to understand, we've done everything we possibly can in Waterford to cut our costs, to redistribute patrols."

The Waterford police holding cell is no longer staffed at night or on weekends, McCaw said, and the county jail only accepts misdemeanor arrests that are for drunken driving or domestic violence.

McCaw said: "What we want to do is restore our detention facility so we can start locking up these people. We're getting the reputation ... that the criminals know, go to Waterford after (5 p.m.) because they're not going to lock us up if it's not a felony."

The chief said a contract with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office for Waterford's police protection won't save the township money.

"For the county to come in and provide the same number of officers is about $10 million," McCaw said. The township, he said, would still have to pay legacy costs such as pensions, purchasing, attorney fees for prosecuting cases, utilities and more.

Bartolotta floated the idea in January of contracting out the township's dispatch services to Oakland County; Solden said the township is in binding arbitration with the dispatchers.

"We had a (labor) contract proposal with the dispatch union months ago, and it was defeated at the board level, 4-3," Solden said, adding that the union then filed for arbitration, and "now that that's happened, there's nothing that can be done."

Bartolotta said the police department had $1 million left over from its budget in 2011 that the township put back in its general fund at the end of the year.

"They had eight laid-off officers they could have brought back for at least one year," he said. "They did this, and I believe this in my heart, to put the fear in the citizens that they don't have enough police officers."

Solden disagreed: "What these people don't understand is that nothing happens by the snap of a finger. That money was there, and it wasn't used," because the township had to first complete labor negotiations.

"I commend the chief for not spending the money on something else. (The department) now has authorization to use it for part-time people," Solden said.

Bartolotta said he'll be voting no.

"I'm definitely opposed, 100 percent," the township trustee said. "I was opposed to putting it on the ballot. I didn't have the heart to look a senior citizen in the eye who's on a fixed income, and raise their taxes by 1.95 mills," he said.

"I'm not against the police department. I am against the way they're trying to raise this money."

However, the township's police chief said cuts and concessions were made before coming to voters with the special assessment district proposal.

"The unions have now stepped up. They've taken wage concessions, they're paying more into their pension system, they're paying more in health care. They have a higher deductible," McCaw said.

"No other municipality in the state of Michigan -- there is none -- has done what we've done with our unions," McCaw said of the department's ability to hire part-time dispatchers and officers.